A Time to Mark the Reality of Vow: The Presence of Care

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This is Dharma Podcast at thermapodcast.org.

This is episode number 2585.

It was recorded on March 4th, 2026.

And it is titled A Time to Mark the Reality of Val.

The Presence of Care.

The speakers for this episode are

Monshin, Nanet, Oerli, Ann, Joan, Halifax.

Deeply acknowledging and recognizing the 33 humans who in two days will receive Jukai.

And some of them are here in this room.

They've been preparing for a year and two years and a lifetime.

And so I'll say a word about that and just deep thanks to you for your commitment.

And one of the things that this gathering is doing is gathering us all together.

And a commitment to live by Val.

To live as peacemakers.

To know what it is to say,

Will you vow to not cause harm?

Will you vow not to kill and to say, I will?

And then every day to discover what the world is asking of us and what we're asking of ourselves

when we say, I will.

And it's not to not invite joy into our lives every moment of every day,

but also to invite deep commitment and responsibility to a world without war.

And to the truth of impermanence and to the truth also of non-separation.

Because until we constantly wake up and show up in a way that deeply embodies,

I am you and you or me.

We don't have much of a chance to be the peacemakers that we're vowing to be.

So we do come with gravity also with joy and with an invitation that if we have 33 people in two days making these vows,

then those 33 people will touch hundreds more and those hundreds more will touch hundreds more.

So this invitation that everyone in the room, everyone hearing our shared words can bring that vow alive.

And we don't know how.

We don't know how in the next moment we will say, I will.

We just keep discovering what that will look like and discovering it together and bringing in not only our wisdom,

but each other's wisdom as we invite your Buddha nature and your Buddha nature to stand up.

So I wanted to share some just a very short paragraph from one of our most profound peacemakers, Tiktok Han.

And in my bookcase, I'm always discovering things in my bookcase because I unabashedly collect books.

I found a book that he wrote after we went to war in Iran a number of years ago.

And what I'm going to read is this short paragraph from a section called go as a river.

When we act as a community of practitioners infused with the energy of mindfulness and compassion, we are powerful.

When we're part of a spiritual community, we have a lot of joy and we can better resist the temptation to be overwhelmed by despair.

Despair is a great temptation in our century.

Alone we are vulnerable.

If we try to go to the ocean as a single drop of water, we will evaporate before we even arrive.

But if we go as a river, if we go as a community, we are sure to arrive at the ocean.

With a community to walk with us, support us, and always remind us of the blue sky.

We will never lose our faith.

I'd like to invite anyone who has been in an active war zone if you would mind standing.

I wonder if there's anyone online, I don't know if we're looking, but if they wanted to raise their hands.

They're on YouTube, so it would be good to put that in the chat.

Thank you for what you do.

Putting yourself in harm's way.

It is remarkable though that the only person to stand is clay.

Because we have not really known over or in our country.

We can feel it through the media.

Clay was in the midst of it in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, just now.

As an ER doc and as a writer, he put himself there to serve.

But no one else in this room has known what it is to run from the bombs.

I don't.

I only know the impact on my father, who we lived his war experience in the last days

of his life.

Something he'd never shared with his family, but carried.

And like a boil that had long been buried in his flesh burst into suffering of a type I had never imagined he experienced.

And I think of the thousands upon thousands of people who have actually been in the landscape of war.

What were they carrying?

How will they meet their own death? Should they not die by violence in a war that is happening now?

When on Saturday I woke up morning at 3.30 or 4.

And something in my little computer pinged and I looked at it and I saw we had gone to war.

And I just honestly, I felt sick.

I really was shaken.

I couldn't play the Buddhist game, if you will, of kind of pseudo-equanimity or things as they are or the truth of impermanence.

I really felt shattered.

And as the hours passed and I let myself move into the news, I realized that it was essential to do two things.

One was not to use practice as a way to bypass or escape or turn away from.

My great teacher, Tiktok Hanh, never did that.

He faced the suffering of war, period.

He spoke about it, he wept about it.

He begged us to stop doing what we were doing to his country.

And at the same time, his practice showed up so he would not turn away from his own shaking.

And it's not for us to think that somehow performing equanimity is ever healthy.

Equanimity is the experience of being able to include everything equally in your experience and not to be fundamentally hijacked but to be worked by what you're experiencing.

We know from neuroscience and social psychology that when power is present in the life of an individual, it's been described as though they have a brain tumor, that empathy is almost non-existent if it is at all present.

The risk taking is accelerated.

And this is what we see in the behavior of demagogues.

We have lost that capacity for one reason or another to be with the truth of the relative and the absolute.

And to let themselves feel the consequences in this case that we're shaken by in our country or at least in this isenta.

The suffering of war.

So on Saturday morning we were doing this wonderful gathering of Hansha.

I thought, what the heck am I going to say walking into this poetry workshop?

So it all seemed kind of normal gazes happening, horrifying.

Yemen is in the grip of the Houthi conflict, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar.

The list is not inconsequential.

Some of those countries are not Arab countries, by the way.

They are Buddhist countries.

They can say that Buddhism is not free from violence.

Delusion touches every corner, even Buddhist corners.

So it's not that we have something special,

whether it's our Christian tradition, which I'm familiar with to a certain extent, the Beatitudes and what Christ taught as a peacemaker.

And certainly what the Buddha emphasized in all of their teachings, what it is to come to peace.

What it is to meet violence with the kind of uprightness.

I'm sure when you were in those war zones, that was the uprightness that you carried besides your six foot four.

That uprightness that you carried, because if you are not upright, you become a target for others but also for yourself.

So how do we practice in the midst of a churnal ground that is over there?

Yeah, it's here. It's between your ears. Yes.

They're the churnal grounds of racial violence, sexual violence, predation.

As we know, just down the road at Zoro Ranch, violence was practice in the most insidious and horrifying way.

And yet, we're here in this place that is peaceful and beautiful, and it's just, you know, kind of the normal irritations that we experience in our regular human lives.

And yet, we understand from the point of view of two of A.H. Dogan's emphasized domains of Uji, time being, and Zenki, undivided activity in the relationship between the two.

We are not separate from what is happening in Iran, Dubai, merging toward Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries.

And the resonance of this, the sort of feel of this is just beginning to rock into our country.

As we see the effects on so many different aspects of our life of what we're facing, including the increasing distrust and enmity toward our kind.

This is, I think, important. Maybe every person in this room aspires to actualize the attitude and behavior of the Bodhisattva.

In our tradition, the Bodhisattva is the archetype of the peacemaker.

And at the same time, there's probably no one in this room who would go anywhere in certain corners of the Americas, and in certain corners of Europe, in certain corners of the Middle East, who would not be looked upon with suspicion and anger.

Because we have the collective burden and karma in our own country for what is transpiring in the Middle East right now, and many other places as well.

We are not separate. No matter how much you perform your religion, you perform Zen or Buddhism or Christianity or Judaism is so-called wonderful people.

We share the karma of our country.

Now, we heard from luncheon a very important perspective that I want to underline here, and this was articulated by me in the last year of our socially engaged Buddhist series in the session that I gave on solidarity.

Just as we are not alone in what is happening in our country, we are also called as was the case in Minneapolis to actualize solidarity, sangha, community, togetherness, connection, because Gandhi could not have changed the destiny of India alone.

It was only because others went with him on the salt march, and then more gathered, and more gathered, and more gathered.

Ticknot Hanh could not change the destiny of the war in Vietnam alone.

As a young person, some of us in this room found ourselves marching down Fifth Avenue,

or at the Pentagon, putting chrysanthemum into the bayonetted weapons of the military, things that I did, because that was, you know, I was in my 20s during that era.

And solidarity was critical in turning the tide of violence that our country was meeting out in Southeast Asia, young and old, not just us crazy young people in the 60s.

There were a lot of gray and white-haired bodhisattvas doing the work.

It wasn't even intergenerational. It cut right across the entire age span of people in our country.

A lot of times people feel that Buddhism is somehow just about practice or transcendence or self-improve it, or getting off the wheel.

But I will tell you, my two most precious teachers, also his holiness, the Dalai Lama, all three have been absolutely clear that a Buddhism that is a part from the suffering of the world is not Buddhism.

No matter how fancy-dancy that version of Buddhism that you're magnetized to might be.

In the Dengkoroku, the transmission of light crafted by Zen Master Kezan, the Buddha saw the morning star arise and said to himself,

I and all beings simultaneously realized the way.

At that moment, Buddha was actualizing solidarity with all beings and things.

I am realizing the way what I and all beings and this vision of solidarity has been so powerfully actualized by Tai in his perspective that the coming Buddha is the Sangha.

If you have heard this, the Sangha, whether it's a Christian Sangha, Buddhist Sangha, a Miami Florida community, we gather together and we make life together.

During the Warren Vietnam, Tai was asked whether he would rather have peace under a communist regime and that would mean the end of Buddhism or the victory of a democratic Vietnam with the great possibility of a Buddhist revival.

And what Tai said is really important.

This is what Monchin was referring to.

He said it was better to have peace at any price.

Now, he was speaking about his country.

But we can also say for ourselves, it is better for each of us as individuals and for our communities to foster peace no matter what the cost is, which is not to say to turn violence on ourselves.

But to understand the actual power of dropping past the violent narratives that so many of us carry, whether subtle or grotesque, it is better to have peace at any price.

And in the same token to work for that, not only in your life, but in your Sangha, your city, your state, your nation, the world.

It is better to have peace at any price.

Tai went on to say that preserving Buddhism does not mean that we should sacrifice people's lives in order to safeguard the Buddhist hierarchy, monasteries or rituals.

This is the preservation of external things that can actually bring a kind of closedness.

Even if Buddhism as such, Tai said, were to be extinguished when human lives are preserved and when human dignity and freedom are cultivated toward peace and loving kindness.

Buddhism can be reborn in the hearts of human beings, because Buddhism means nothing else but that.

It is not this exercise to try to preserve anything external.

It is the exercise to actually open ourselves and to examine the landscape of our internal violence, should you have a little of that, or I have a little of that.

Anyone free? Thank you so much for your honesty.

And it is to understand that this work that we are doing is not to preserve, but to liberate.

All beings, including ourselves, which is why the cultivation of bodhicitta is so deeply emphasized in this context, to begin to take us away from our self-centeredness and to develop this sense of deep commitment to serve others.

Whether like Maryland at the Cancer Center or what Tuck is doing with Wendy and Jane in the prison or play does in war-torn countries,

or I look back at James, Fushan, families who are being torn apart because of violence within them, mostly affecting their children.

Really, when you live for others in this way that Thai is referring to, it is to be free.

The Buddha was clear in the Dhamma Pada, he says, victory creates hatred.

I mean, in the Middle East we have created fundamentally a terrorist generator.

It's just staggering how dumb.

What do you think young men want to do with their lives when they see their families destroy?

When I was in Algeria in 1990, when was it?

It was six years after the revolution in Algeria had ended.

Boomedian was the president of Algeria.

Oh, all my dates are alighting. You get so old every year, it's like every other year kind of.

But the thing that I was asked to do in Algeria was to go into a neighborhood called Bob L. Wedd,

where most of the most courageous Machi revolutionaries in Algeria had come from.

And in this very neighborhood six years after the revolution had ended, this neighborhood had the highest rates of suicide than every other place in Algiers.

And the Algerian government didn't understand and hired me to research why that was the case.

And what I discovered, whether it's true or false, is that the revolution had actually been interjected.

There was no more external enemy.

And the enemy had turned upon the very young men who had fought in the war because there was no one else to fight except themselves.

And their feeling of degradation and guilt in having carried out a horrendous fight, I'll be justified.

But characterized by the worst kind of violence.

Hatred does not cease by violence or hatred.

War is not the solution.

Defeat and victory both cause suffering.

Defeat close. Victory further down the line.

When my father would awaken from a dream in his last hours, being bombed in the Mediterranean theater and reliving that, that was decades, decades after the war.

And he carried that, as I said, like a poison within him, behaving like a very nice man otherwise.

I want to honor the strength of Tiktok Han, of Dr. King, of Mahagosananda, of Sulakshiva Raksa, of Ari and Sri Lanka, of Joanna Macy, of so many Buddhists who have actually magnetized

around them communities of social action and social responsibility standing up against violence in so many different ways.

And this is what I hope to see more of.

It's been interesting to go to various protests in Santa Fe. Very few young people are there.

Just a lot of gray hair and white hair. And they're kind of gentle because somehow, even though proximate to Los Alamos National Laboratory producing plutonium pits and expanding that production.

By the way, we should, I believe, stand strongly with each other against direct and indirect violence associated with war.

So in these last minutes together, I want to thank you for letting me express the gravity that I feel and the importance of resourcing ourselves.

So we have the means to actually take skillful action just as the people who might just mention have done.

And you to go out into the world, and as Monshin said, and touch the lives of others with both your confidence in being able to uphold yourself in the midst of conflict.

And at the same time, to feel the truth of suffering of the world, which is called compassion, and to act from that basis in the way that is appropriate for you.

However, understanding how important it is that we do this together.

We're going to just take a pause. And for a moment, reflect on what you might do in this coming time.

Both to resource yourself, just to have that strong back in the open front, but also to build solidarity, to build community, and to do as my elders did.

Now most of them gone, sulakis, the only one now, alive, of the close elders in this movement that has touched my life for over a half a century.

What will you do? What do you need to do? What are you called to do?

To actualize authentically, not as a performance, but peace in your life and in the winner world.

So with the breath, let's just sit back for a moment and consider.

Thank you for your internal reflection.

And also for the support of each other as we face a very uncertain and pretty scary future.

I make myself out of my way out of the whole of recovery from my heart situation, where sometimes I wobble physically, but those who know me well, I'm not wobbling inside.

So we might be lame and halt and wobbly, whether young or old, but it is your internal gyroscope that really is important right now.

Thank you for your practice. Thank you for showing up tonight and please water the seeds of nonviolence in your life and in the lives of all those whom you connect with to the best of your ability.

The world needs strong brave and caring people now.

The vision is our resourceful, high love to transform them.

Reality is boundless, high love to receive it. The awakened way is unsurpassable.

High love to my youth, vision is our resourceful, high love to free them.

The vision is our resourceful, high love to transform them.

Reality is boundless, high love to receive it. The awakened way is unsurpassable.

High love to my youth, vision is our resourceful, high love to free them.

The vision is our resourceful, high love to transform them.

Reality is boundless, high love to receive it. The awakened way is unsurpassable.

High love to my youth, vision is our resourceful, high love to transform them.

I hope we young people, if I call myself young, get out there.

Thank you. Can get out there with you and help to really end suffering.

Thank you so much.

Next Wednesday, our Fushan, since a Fushan will be giving the talk, so please come for that.

And please join us for dinner tonight to settle more deeply into this conversation.

Starting, let's see, on Friday, we have our jukeye ceremony.

So there might be a pack of Zendo already, but you're welcome to come.

And then online, of course, we'll be streaming it on YouTube and on our Zazen group.

So this is the ceremony of taking the precepts.

And we have 33 people receiving the precepts on the sixth, including a number online.

And then we'll be welcoming the chaplains.

So our chaplain graduates will come the following weekend, giving presentations and then having our graduation ceremony, which is also open to the public.

And then our next two cohorts, cohort 18 and 19, you believe we're almost in, or we're in our 20th year.

And it'll be wonderful to have the chaplains back in the mix.

So join us for the talks and with the chaplains, and we'll have another jukeye for the chaplains on the 22nd, which will.

Such deep vows to mention for stewarding our Mahasanga chaplains, especially.

All these wonderful people taking the vows and doing this great work of creating their lineage charts and sewing the rakisu.

And it's all out of love.

So, see you at dinner.

Thank you.